David Sheen’s lecture “the Bullet, the Ballot, and the Boycott” (Parts 5 + 6)

Last week in Part 4, Sheen responded to the theme, “How can Israel be racist if there are Black Jews?” This week in Part 5, he talks about “How can Israel be racist if there are Queer Jews?”

In some neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, gay couples may live openly. However, violence toward gay people in Tel Aviv has included anti-gay graffiti on peoples’ homes and a shooting up of gay community center. Queer victims of terror are not cared for by the Israeli government: the crimes are not investigated or solved and the medical needs of the victims are not covered. Support for queer Israeli’s is all for show with queer victims of terror being used to support anti-Hezbollah propaganda and with politicians coming out to gay pride parades to garner votes. The most homophobic politicians are appointed to government and even politicians who went out to the gay pride parade voted against legislation that would have protected LGBTQ people from discrimination.

A 16-year-old woman was killed and six others wounded at the Jerusalem gay pride parade this year after being stabbed by a rabbi, Yishai Schlissel, who committed and served time for the same crime ten years ago—no police officers were spared from an elite wedding on that day to shadow this known violent convict. Posters in reference to the crime applauded the stabber for this act of violence, influenced by anti-miscegenation stories of Phinaeus in the Torah and Talmud. The pride parade stabbing and the burning of the Dawabsheh family home was addressed by liberal legislators when they called for a national conversation about this incitement to racist and homophobic violence, and on the day of this session in Knesset, none of the Right wing Knesset members showed up. Who enables the homophobia of government appointees and legislators? Netanyahu’s top funder is also the top funder of the Lehava group, the anti-miscegenation terrorists.

David Sheen is an independent journalist and filmmaker originally from Toronto, Canada who now lives in Dimona, Israel. Sheen began blogging when he first moved to Israel in 1999 and later went on to work as a reporter and editor at the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz. He now writes for a variety of local, regional and international outlets including Alternet and Electronic Intifada. Sheen is currently writing a book about African immigrants to Israel and the struggles they face. His website is http://www.davidsheen.com and he tweets from @davidsheen

On Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at University of New Orleans, David Sheen presented his lecture “the Bullet, the Ballot, and the Boycott” about Israeli incitement to racist violence, the focus of his on-the-ground reporting for the past five years. The core of the presentation concerns the dehumanizing discourse towards Palestinians, Africans and other non-Jews by top Israeli political and religious leaders, and the vigilante attacks they inspire, which spiked during last summer's assault on the Gaza Strip.